This invention relates to the field of portable computers, and in particular to portable computers employing disk drives.
Portable computers are known which incorporate disk drives used for mass storage of data used by the computer for processing. In the past, such disk drives have been incorporated into the housing of the personal computer as a permanent structural component and thus not removable. Some of the disk drives are designed for use with so-called floppy disks, while others are designed for use with rigid disks. The floppy disks are insertable and removable from the drives; while the rigid disks are not usually fixed within the drive.
The advantage of the floppy disk is its portability: i.e., data stored on the floppy disk can be removed from the drive (and thus the computer) and either physically stored elsewhere or transferred into the internal or mass storage memory of some other computer. Rigid disk drives incorporated into the physical structure of the portable computer housing do not offer this portability advantage.
In order to try to provide some portability to disk drives using rigid disks, portable drives have been designed which are removably connectable to the computer system incorporated inside the portable computer housing, the connection usually being made by a cable. In addition, rigid disk drives have been designed which are incorporated onto printed circuit cards which are removably attachable in the extra bus slots within a personal computer. Due to size requirements, however, such arrangements have not been found to be physically compatible with the extremely small portable computers which are currently available.
As portable computers have evolved into more sophisticated computer systems with smaller dimensions and lighter weight, efforts have been directed toward providing increasing amounts of portable data storage with smaller weight and physical dimensions. With reduced physical size, however, it has been found difficult if not impossible to provide appropriate and reliable mechanical latching mechanisms which provide reliable mechanical retaining forces when the disk drive is installed in the portable computer while at the same time affording easy removal of the disk drive. For example, with space at an extreme premium there is little room available for mechanical latching mechanisms ordinarily used to retain a rectangular module in an opening formed in a housing. In addition to these mechanical constraints, portable computers operate on battery power which has limited electrical storage capacity. Consequently, normal power operated latching and unlatching mechanisms are not suitable for adaptation into a portable computer environment. Also, the electronic components of a computer system incorporated into a portable computer are sensitive to static charges: consequently, some protective mechanism must be provided to guard against static discharge into the computer system electronic components when an object is inserted into a portable computer housing and electrically connected to the computer system components. In addition, to ensure proper system operation, some provision must be made to signal the computer that electrical interconnection or disconnection between the disk drive and the computer is imminent.